Overview
This is a review for the Lord of the Rings Card Game Two Towers Saga Expansion from the perspective of a player that only has purchased the Revised Core and the Fellowship of the Ring Saga Expansion, this is to simulate a minimum purchase card list for new players. This is so that new players don’t have to worry about getting all of the revised content before being able to jump into the new Expansion. (Though it is recommended to play through the revised content in order.)
The decks made are exclusively using the Revised Core, the Fellowship Saga Expansion and the Two Towers Saga Expansion, and this Saga is being played as a campaign, so some of the quests will be easier due to the Boons earned in the Fellowship Saga Expansion.
Contents
The Two Towers Saga Expansion contains the previously released Treason of Saruman and Land of Shadow Saga Expansion boxes into a single release, with both the player cards and encounter cards. If you already have purchased the previously released saga boxes for Two Towers, the Two Towers Saga Expansion offers nothing new.
Basic story
Follow Aragorn and company as they pursue The Uruk-Hai the took Merry and Pippin, defend Helm’s Deep alongside the Riders of Rohan, aid the Ents in the taking of Isengard. And then follow Frodo and Sam as they tame Smeagol, meet with the Rangers of Ithillien at the Cross-roads and take the secret stair to Shelob Lair.
Interesting Mechanics
- The Uruk-Hai: Toughness is a new Keyword introduced in this quest which reduces the damage assigned to that enemy by the Toughness value each time it takes damage. E.g. toughness 2 would mean each instance of damage gets reduced by 2, Gandalf’s chosen play effect being damage would do 2 damage to the above enemy.
- Helm’s Deep: In this quest players are trying to prevent progress being placed on the quest, with the newly introduced Defense keyword, in which excess threat is placed on the quest as progress rather than increasing the players threat level. This changes the quest drastically because the locations also have positive effects while in the staging area but are nasty when explored, so players need to balance clearing locations and keeping them in the staging area.
- The Road to Isengard: The quest begins with the Entmoot and player need to exhaust their heroes to recruit Ents as Objective Allies before having to take on the rest of the quest, however each turn spent in the first stage of the quest adds a resource token to the quest and when it is advance to the 2nd stage, each resource is converted to an encounter card that is revealed. This Quest also introduces the Wizardry keyword, which have nasty effects that get triggered by a variety of ways through the encounter deck.
- The Taming of Smeagol: Introduces the Mire keyword that adds resources to locations with the keyword, and then once the resource tokens equal the Mire value it is discarded and there is a nasty effect that takes place, described on the card itself. In order to clear the quest all Undead enemies that are engaged with players need to be eliminated.
- The Journey at the Cross-Roads: The Haradrim and Easterling that make it through the Black Gate return in a later quest in Return of the King. Players will fight to try and clear the enemies from the staging area each turn due to the fact that if a certain number of enemies go through the Black Gate, players lose the game. And players need to defeat a certain number of enemies to make it to the Cross-Roads and then need to explore the Cross-Roads to clear the quest.
- Shelob’s Lair: Tough quest due to Shelob gaining “immunity” to damage through the resource tokens that get placed on her throughout the quest that nullify each instance of damage and remove a resource token instead of dealing the damage. It is not difficult for Shelob to have 10+ resource tokens by the time the final stage comes around, requiring lots of attacks per round to clear out the tokens and defeat Shelob in order to complete the quest.
Pros
This Expansion illustrates the events of the Two Towers exceptionally well, from the desperate struggle to defend Helm’s Deep to the terror of being lured into Shelob’s Lair.
Quests can be cleared only using cards from the Revised Core, and both released Saga Repackages, but players will have an easier time if they have all the Revised Content.
Quite a few staple cards for heroes introduced in this set are included in this expansion.
Cons
Larger card pool makes this Expansion a lot easier, especially considering that when these quests were originally released after 5 cycles worth of cards had been released.
Final Thoughts
The Two Towers Saga Expansion is an excellent expansion for the Lord of the Rings Card Game, it contains many high value cards to boost your card pool with and 6 excellent unique quests that cover the events of the Two Towers.
Anyone who enjoyed and owns the Fellowship of the Ring Saga Expansion would thoroughly enjoy this expansion and will appreciate the new cards that bolster what is released in the Saga Expansions.